Wednesday 2 February 2011
Evaluation
· In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
‘Daddy’s eyes’ by The Killers is a rock song that I decided to make a music video for. I watched many of their videos so that I could get a rough idea of what to include so that when watching it, it will represent the conventions of a real ‘Killers’ video.
The videos that stood out for me were ‘Somebody told me’ and ‘Human’ whilst watching these I made notes on the way that Brandon Flowers acts and moves so that when producing this I knew how I wanted my actor to play the role, costume was also a huge part in this to make it as realistic as possible. Almost every video that Brandon features in he is wearing a shirt, tie and trousers so this is what my actor wore throughout filming.
I also watched and analysed similar music videos from the same genre, one of these was Arctic Monkeys-When the sun goes down. Doing this provided me with some useful conventions to include when filming my music video to make it look as professional as possible.
With my song not having a video to it already I had to make it fully with my own imagination. I created my initial ideas consisting of different thoughts eventually emerging into one. Following this was my storyboard in which I drew out each shot showing the camera and mise en scene this was helpful so I knew exactly what to do when filming. During the process of filming my team member left so I was by myself left me to do it. Because of this I had to change a few things as I was left without backgrounds and would not have time to produce them again as I also had a lot of editing to do and had to produce my digipack which is time consuming.
My video was shot in the studio using the green screen and is an amplification video as it goes in time with the music.
My ancillary tasks also challenge forms and conventions of real CD and advertisement digipacks. The advertisement includes the logo, information on the release date and ratings from MTV, Mirror and Radio 1. The CD and advertisement are in the same style so that they can be recognised and be associated with each other. The CD is featured as background within my music video to promote it.
· How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The combination between my main product and the ancillary tasks is very important as I want the audience to realise that they are linked together so for this I had to have connections between them. I want people to understand that the CD and Advertisement is associated with the Daddy’s eyes music video so that it instantly catches their eye when they see it promoted on a website or in store. The advertisement includes information on the CD along with ratings from critics.
When designing my Digipack I looked at other Killers album covers and the use of simple colours that they include. Therefore I decided to use a sky blue colour and used the linear gradient tool to make the blue fade. On the background I then used the extrude filter which gave it the block look, after this I added text and the picture of the eye which I added many effects on. The font for ‘The Killers Daddy’s eyes’ was downloaded from DaFont.com so that it looked more professional. Once all the text was complete I used the Tile filter on it and also did this on the eye, this made it look ripped and actually part of the background instead of just put on top and looking tacky.
· What have you learned from your audience feedback?
From the audience feedback that I received the main point was to include more locations in the video, I feel that this was a fair point as it was only set in the studio and a variety of different settings would have just gave it that extra bit of professionalism. However apart from this the feedback was very good and I received many compliments on the use of the green screen and how well the actor lip synced along with the number of different camera angles and shots used. If I was to produce this again I would be more prepared as my partner left during the filming this yet which left me at a set back. This is because I had no backgrounds as they were on his computer account therefore I had to create some quick backgrounds whilst editing. As far as the comments on the storyline the video was an amplification video, which the viewers quickly realized, the white background transfers to black, as the music gets more upbeat and louder.
· How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
During the process of creating my music video and Digipack I used a variety of different media technologies included in the college. I used ReflecMedia’s revolutionary suite of products, which includes the Basematte, Chromatte and a LiteRing. These allowed me to get the best quality possible and add whatever backgrounds I wanted for each clip. I also used the Newtek TriCaster PRO 2.5 this is an incredible piece of software that allowed me to transfer and edit my work easily to a portable camera and then onto iMovie. IMovie is an editing software built in to the Mac computers within the college, this captures the footage in chronological order ready to be transferred on to Final Cut Express. Final Cut is an easy way to edit footage to exactly how you want it and match it in time with the music. I used this as it allowed me to do motion paths, filters and transitions.
When creating my Digipack I used Photoshop Elements, which was a new experience for me, and as I experimented with this I gained a greater understanding and added filters and other tools that helped me make it look as professional as possible.
Throughout all of the coursework I added it to my Blog, which showed my work on so it was visible to whoever viewed it. I added a background to it to represent the genre and make it look more entertaining instead of the basic plain boring background.